


Other Worlds: Act II

by FullSizeRender, SyntheticAngel



Series: Other Worlds [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Aliens, Alternate Reality, Dystopian Future, Friendship, Original Fiction, Other, Outer Space, Romance, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, original nonhuman characters, scifi, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullSizeRender/pseuds/FullSizeRender, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticAngel/pseuds/SyntheticAngel
Summary: She may not have a grip on outer space yet, but at least io is on a working spaceship now. She learns more about her new "crew" as they set their sights on The Singularity, an intergalactic federation-approved citadel, in the hopes of tracking down Isotech: the last remaining human colony and the only people who know what happened to Earth.
Relationships: Original Character & Original Character
Series: Other Worlds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540339
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Other Worlds: Act II

io rolls out of bed rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Day one of a two-day trip to the next planet: done. Staying asleep the whole way through the night _flying through space_ is just as rare and incredible as it was on Earth, maybe even more so. The lights around her room are as dim as they were when she went to bed, about… She checks her suit’s internal time system: seven and a half hours ago. No sun to revolve around, which means no day/night cycle. Right.

io walks through a quiet ship in an oversized shirt her suit manifests. The rumble of space travel is a lot less offensive now than at takeoff, even though io worries at the sound of a flapping piece of sheet metal somewhere outside. It’s _probably_ fine.

“Holy shit.” 

She stops in the kitchen doorway again. Every time she goes in, there seems to be a new surprise waiting, and this time it’s a figure on the dining table with a sheet thrown over its head like a bad ghost costume. No eye holes. She lets out a breath with a hand over her chest. Little black talons peek from the end of the sheet. She manifests some pants on, too, before doing anything else.

“Chico? Hey.” She attempts to shake him gently. The sheet slowly falls to the floor as his majestic golden wings unfurl, talons stretching and curling. His eyes flutter open, but rather than an empty kitchen he finds io’s questioning red eyes staring back at him.

He freezes.

“Uh, oh, wow, um…” He stammers, chest heaving as panic sets in almost immediately. His once graceful wings start to flail about, his face running pale as he nearly loses his balance on his perch. “Hi! Y-You don’t normally wake up this early, do you? No wait, I meant to say this isn’t what it looks like-”

“You sleep with a sheet over your head? On the table?” io asks. She recalls something about putting sheets over canary cages. Thank the stars he doesn’t _screech_ like Earth birds, though. “At least take the storage room, that’s all opened up now. Speaking of that,” she rubs her stomach, “do you think I can eat any of the stuff in the cans in there?”

“The storage room smells kinda icky…” He murmurs with a slight shiver. He frowns at the mere thought of being in there longer than a few seconds, the vague smell of unspecified rot haunting his nostrils. “Oh! Uh...I think we still have some Teltani milk in the fridge, I remember seeing a carton last night. Have you had some? The taste is a bit odd, but it goes great with a bowl of Sugar Stars!”

“Tel what milk, now?” She murmurs, peeking inside of the fridge as if it might jump out at her. She finds fluorescent lighting and a funny odor, but no monsters. She raises a brow at the single carton inside. Held up closer, she observes an unidentified pink goo on the lip.

“Is it supposed to be covered in weird slime?”

“Weird...slime?” He ponders, and tilts his head to try looking around her. “Is it pink? Does it smell like honey?”

“Yea, actually,” her nose wrinkles.

“Aw man. I told Iris that’s the _community_ carton, but she never listens. I don’t think the word ‘community’ is in her species’ language, actually. Anyway, please don’t eat it, I don’t want to scare you but it’s probably poison.”

io sighs and puts the carton back where she found it.

“Did you have to take special classes or something to be able to speak her language?”

“Me? Oh no! Definitely not, she speaks common, like I am to you now! Most of us learn and use it for...probably situations like these! Living in cramped spaceships with people who come from all over.” He says as he folds up the blanket previously over his head. “But her native tongue, you know. No word for ‘community’.”

“Huh.” She nods. His explanation reminds her of the fish men that her suit couldn’t immediately translate. Seems like anything other than ‘common language’ takes longer to decipher. Chico shrugs and joins her in her search for food.

She opens up the pantry to find dust and cobwebs. Then after that, the fridge again, several cabinets, and under sink areas. A troubled expression twists her features. The situation is more dire than she anticipated.

“We didn’t actually get anything before we left the planet, did we?”

“Maybe we can stop at a convenience store on the way there.” He suggests, at which she lights up.

“We can do that?” She asks, then narrows her eyes. “ _How_ do we do that?”

“We search for them nearby! Navigation’s the easy part. But landing, uh...” He rubs the back of his head. “M-Maybe I shouldn’t. We just got it running again, and it was so bad before…”

She snaps. “I’ll get Rinzler.” Before Chico can answer, she turns and disappears into the hallway. Her bare feet make no sound on the metal, except over particularly loose panels. She approaches his door and hesitates before it, hand raised. Hopefully he doesn’t mind the early wake up call. The last time they spoke one on one was during the fuel gathering trip, where he left on a questionably thoughtful note. She can’t really read facial cues when he’s never taken his helmet off around her. She knocks.

“Rinzler? You awake?”

Faint clicking and shuffling around can be heard behind the door before it slides open, Rinzler leaning with his shoulder against the frame. Behind him a few cables appear to be strewn about on the floor, but the room appears to be almost meticulously cleaned. Even the bed looks crisp and clean, as if it hadn’t been disturbed at all.

“You rang?”

She has to crane her neck to look at him, shy smile on her lips. The helmet staring back at her makes butterflies in her stomach. She gestures back towards the control room.

“I don’t know about you but Chico and I are hungry enough to try eating Iris’s canned mystery meat cubes if we don’t find something else soon. Are you awake enough to land this thing somewhere we can find not-poison?” 

He chuckles. “So you didn’t find anything in the storage room after all.”

“I think what was in there is closer to fertilizer than real food.”

“Oh, you’re not a fan of bloodmeal?”

“You got me, I’m hiding my true identity: one million secret mosquitos in the shape of a person.” She rolls her eyes playfully, and he shuts the door behind himself. They start towards the front of the ship.

“You could be for all I know. That suit could hide a lot of interesting secrets.” It isn’t until he finishes his sentence that he realizes how his good-natured ribbing could be interpreted, and quickly clears his throat to backpedal. “Er, in the sense of like...y’know, maybe you’re some kind of flesh monster? Like in the movies? I don’t...I dunno where I was going with this.”

“Ah,” she laughs to cover the awkward misunderstanding. Was that... _flirting_? It takes her off guard and she has trouble finding anything to follow up with. Not that the idea put her off, exactly. They walk in brief silence before she tries again. “Did you, uh...sleep well? It’s been a surprisingly smooth ride.”

“I guess I did? It’s hard to tell. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I closed the door. I just sorta shut down y’know?” He rolls his neck as they walk, massaging some of the morning stiffness out. “What about you? Feeling better after getting tossed around at the club?”

“Oh _god_ yea.” She says, following him into the open control room. “Next time we go to a club, it better be the dancing kind. That was a lot for an accountant in a silly space suit.” She tucks her hands under her armpits and leans against the doorway. She watches Rinzler grab the head of the dusty pilot’s chair, and taps the ground with an idle foot. “Speaking of things I’m not, a pilot is one of them, so I’ll uh...go bother Chico some more and leave you to it.”

“You’re leaving me so soon?” Rinzler barely looks up as he wipes dust out of the pilot’s seat before turning his attention to the navigation panel. “C’mon, you’re gonna need to learn how to do this sooner or later, and I don’t trust Iris or Chico to run you through the basics of energy management _or_ inertia control.”

In surprise, io stops mid-turn. Her cheeks grow warm.

“I feel kinda bad you’re having to teach me all this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I need it, but I really doubt you’re going to need to learn how to balance accounts any time soon, so that leaves me with a lot less opportunities to return the favor.”

“Very much doubt it. I don’t have much use for money.” He eases back into the pilot’s seat, the creaking metal threatening to give way before he finally settles into it. Not the most comfortable chair he’s ever flown with, but that wasn’t a very large list to begin with. “It’s just nice to have a real friend out here for once. Companionship’s a fair trade, isn’t it?”

She stops at the co-pilot seat and falls into it, all the while eyeing the side of his helmet. The strange butterflies are back in full.

“I can’t really argue with that. Alright, teach me.”

He familiarizes her with the important panels on the display, like general controls and a tracking system that should warn them if foreign objects get too close. The scan system skips on one part of its rotation, but she gets the idea. He points out that occasionally one of the windows may run haywire and flicker erratically, which she’d only have to smack the screen to fix. The real fix, according to Rinzler, wouldn’t have been worth the amount of effort, an idea she respects. He points out several levers and buttons for navigation. Her first scan for space convenience shops returns only one nearby, and he guides her through setting the destination. The panel beeps to confirm their actions.

“I’ll handle the actual landing part, though. I’m sure you understand,” he says. io’s lips turn upwards. “I’d show you how to run a turret, but we appear to be a little light on self-defense options.”

“What options do we have?”

“Play dead, or pray. Or we check to see if we have any signal flares.” Rinzler reaches for an unpowered panel with a few orange buttons - mysteriously marked K, S, L, 1, 2 and 3 - and holds the L button until it lights up. “Hey, Chico! Does the intercom work? Need you to look for something.”

“Uh...the speaker isn’t lighting up but I can hear you!” The panel hisses, Chico’s shrill chirping and the intercom’s static making for an awful combination. Rinzler shoots io a wary glance; they would _not_ be using this again. “What’s up?”

“Do we have any flares for signaling passing ships? Y’know, in case of emergency.”

“Uhhhh...nope! Iris used them to cook meat!”

“Cook…? Meat? Those things are...y’know what? Never mind. Thanks, Chico.” Rinzler releases the button and groans. “Unbelievable. If we buy anything at this store we’re gonna have to lock it up.” io chokes back laughter.

“I see what you mean about the companionship thing now, it’s probably better the humans stick together. I don’t want to be the guy disrespected in death by being cooked over an emergency flare.” She sets her hands on the console after a relieved deep breath. “Speaking of food, what do you think you miss the most from Earth? What was your favorite thing to eat?”

“I- uh, my favorite thing to eat,” he sputters, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. “I’m not sure. There’s just _so much_ out here in space, it’s hard to even think about something I missed from Earth. Tastes change and all that.”

“What?” She rests her chin in her palm, elbow on the console. “You have to have at least _one_ favorite food that would just undo an entire bad day at work. Mine was braised pork udon. Had a favorite spot and everything.”

“Well, uh…” The rim of his faceplate glows red as he gets deeper in thought, then fades into green before disappearing entirely. “I’d say an 8oz beef hamburger, one slice of American cheese, 1oz of ketchup and mustard and a whole wheat bun. Maybe a slice of sharp cheddar, that was a close second in my town.”

She blinks at him. “Down to the exact _measurement_? Okay, beep boop, noted. I should’ve guessed an engineer has burger specs.” She notices his visor lighting again, but thinks nothing of it. Her deployed helmet probably does the same. “You think you’ll find a burger like that where we’re going?” 

“Probably not in the way you remember it. Last burger I saw wiggled when I got too close.”

“Gross.” 

“Yea, that’s not even including the fries with eyes.”

“ _The what_?”

A flickering steals their attention. The faulty window he warned her about flashes random colors and static, much more of a distraction than io thought it’d be. She reaches to smack the console as Rinzler does, and their hands bump together. io draws back quickly.

“Oops, sorry!”

Maybe it’s projection, but Rinzler’s black visor looks illuminated. He rubs his neck in a way that strikes her as sheepish.

“You go ahead.”

io corrects the window and Rinzler focuses more acutely on piloting. She fidgets with the scanning system, trying to pass the moment quicker with buttons and dials. Instead, their destination approaches in the large front window. She marvels at the tiny orange dot ahead, and the details she sees more clearly the closer they get. 

Their stop is a large moon, hanging delicately above an even bigger planet being visibly ravaged by yellow electrical storms. She doesn’t need to know much about outer space to draw the conclusion that there probably isn’t anyone living down there. It reminds her of red rock mountains, beautiful from far away but not often more than just a nice picture on a long road trip through the desert. Rinzler whistles at the sight. He suggests strapping in before he notifies the rest of the ship, and io happily does so.

Rattling and other concerning noises ensue when he switches gears, but she trusts him. Descending so quickly looks scarier through the window than taking off did. The ship touches down safely, though, and the pair unbuckles.

“How was that, you feeling sick at all?” Rinzler asks, to her surprise. 

“No, that was good.” She smiles. Her muscles feel weird after the constant vibrations of landing, but otherwise it’s the truth. “You were worried?”

“Well yea, I’d hate to botch it and have my co-pilot feeling under the weather.” Blank visor, but she finds fondness for it.

“Is that part of your pilot training?”

“Oh, right.” He says. “Right, a good pilot uh, gets you there in one piece, but a great one...cares about...their crew. I hope you’re taking notes.”

He gestures for her to go first while she laughs. Chico and Iris await them in the common area. Normally, seeing Iris would have been cause for anxiety, but io finds herself feeling too lighthearted from the cockpit to care. A bloodstained pile of credits sits on the table, which Chico explains is Iris’s contribution to their snack fund. ‘As long as the numbers are still readable, it’s OK if the credits are a little grimy!’ io glances at Rinzler and puffs in amusement.

“Alright who’s going?” Rinzler asks, and io scoops up the credits.

“Me,” she says, hand raised.

“I still don’t have a suit.” Chico laments. “But I don’t mind staying, I don’t know what they have but can you grab me some Kevlar Crisps? In the blue flavor please!”

“I’m going too,” Iris says, and the three convene at the airlock. io deploys her spacesuit with haste as her stomach reminds her it exists.

As soon as the doors open, a familiar picture comes into view and io treads forward. Open space as far as her eye can see, red sand and a black road under a dusky sky. Stars dot the view above, around a looming uninhabited planet. A lone structure waits ahead, a pit stop for weary travelers amidst a desert of moon dust and neon light from its blinking sign. _STARCO Fuel_. A familiar stranger in a world she doesn’t recognize. Something that looks like a tumbleweed crawls by.

And then memories come back in waves. The scenery reminds her distinctly of home, of her and the rest of the ‘village dorks’ jumping into a gas-burning car to drive out half an hour into low-light territory in the hopes they’d see a UFO. She would sneak out through her window when the house was asleep, and walk a block over to a waiting car where her friends were ready with cans of Arizona and chips, or imported snacks she couldn’t normally find in store. Magazines littered the stinky vehicle, robots and vintage space travel graphics on their torn and trampled pages. They’d point at ‘strange lights’ in the sky, satellites creeping by, and tell each other stories of the universe beyond. Stargazing and daydreaming were the closest she got to feeling like herself back then, with the other paranatural nerds she called her childhood friends. The rest of the world had been so technologically advanced, while her hometown held onto an idealized version of an American Dream long left in the past.

“It reminds me of a gas station.” She says finally, catching up to Rinzler when she realizes how far she’s drifted behind.

“Gas station?”

“Yea.” She pauses, their heels on the concrete so loud against a backdrop of silent, open space. “Ah right, it might’ve just been a home thing. I don’t think I ever saw a gas station in Horizon I, it was a little too ‘advanced’ for that. We used to have cars that burned gasoline to run, and the places you refueled at looked like this. _Weirdly_ like this.”

She watches Iris dart ahead of them and navigate around the building rather than into it. io raises a brow but lets it go as the convenience store’s door slides open.

“Welcome, traveler. Please take a basket. Deposit credits at any of the stations in front. _Thank you_.”

“Whoa,” she jumps. There’s a window where a cashier should be, but instead a humanoid hologram floats midair. Retro neon lights line the walls in the shapes of stars and planets. Rinzler picks up a basket and begins meandering through the fully stocked aisles, which also look eerily identical to Earth’s if she doesn’t look too closely. He chuckles.

“I’m guessing your gas stations didn’t have franchise AI.” 

“Not like this, no, I mean some restaurants did but never in a gas station. Pretty sure my hometown would’ve burned the place down if they tried that.” She follows him into the aisles, her vision blurry while her suit attempts to translate far too many labels at once. She winces. “My coworker Europa and I would go to this lounge sometimes that was run only by vintage robots. I miss that place.” She sighs with bittersweet nostalgia, then tries to read labels again. “We should get more than a few things. What do you think the dietary needs are for a bird Chico’s age? How old _is_ Chico?”

“I mean, outside of blue flavored Kevlar chips? I dunno. Have you tried just asking him?” Rinzler tosses some vibrantly labeled snack foods into the basket. io examines a bottle of viscous oil mysteriously named ‘The Juice.’

“No, I haven’t. I like him but I don’t know what to say. I can’t just _ask_ him.”

“Why not? You did with me.”

She looks troubled and quickly says, “Sure but you’re _different_.”

“I am?” He asks, looking over his shoulder.

“I mean, you’re…really easy to talk to, is all.” She slows down, looking through tourist trinkets on a spinning rack. A tiny shop jingle fills in the silence, along with a faraway rummaging and sounds of clanging metal outside. “Since you joined the crew things have felt a lot more comfortable.” _Not too strong now, io_. “Or cohesive, anyway. I don’t feel like I’m going to die at any second when you’re around.”

“Heh. I appreciate that.” His visor glows and she sees a tiny buffering circle from the next aisle over. She assumes his suit is translating labels in real-time, too. “I feel different around you too. In a good way, I think.”

“You think?!” io bursts, grabbing handfuls of energy bars once her suit deciphers them properly. She can’t help the wide smile. _Immediately_ after that, she spots an entire pallet of glorious instant ramen around the corner of an aisle and she takes those too. She joins Rinzler at the front of the shop and they scan items one by one. They count Iris’s credits for deposit. Her heart thuds excitedly in her chest. “When will you _know_?”

“I can’t properly say yet, so I’m going to have to continue these trials and I’ll get back to you on my findings. Don’t worry though, I have a good feeling about you.” He taps the side of his head with good natured spirit and she shakes hers. 

“You know,” she says as they carry bags of snacks and drinks out of the store, “I was wondering for a bit why you don’t take your helmet off, but now I kinda like it! It works for you, you’re like this cool mysterious Daft Punk vibe hacker man kind of guy. It’s cool.”

“Fan of the classics, nice. It’s funny you say that, I was going for post-apocalyptic neo-military space survivor.” He nudges her to look where he’s looking. The dumpster on the side of the building jangles and moves like something is inside of it. “I found Iris.”

“Eugh.” io covers her mouth. “Do I let her know we’re done or do we leave her here?”

“Your call, but if we’re going to fight off your supervillain megacorp bad guys then we’d probably want somebody like her on our team.” 

“Oh god...you’re right.” 

She calls out for their dumpster-diving crew member, who slinks out of the metal box like a demonic slug that’s way too proud of herself for io’s comfort. 

“Did you, uh, find anything good?” io fights the urge to gag.

“Yessss, very good. Full of food, _and-_ ” Iris’s arm thrusts forward, revealing a dripping canvas bag that somehow manages to look worse than she does. Her mandibles chitter with delight, “ssssome food for the road too.”

“Great! Let's go.” io says quickly, pushing Rinzler towards the ship with her bag-holding hands. He makes some sound that reads _amused_ to her.

Iris climbs up first, Rinzler following suit. io turns back to STARCO one last time, wanting to live her Earth memory just a little longer. She wishes goodbye to the wistful desert scene.

“Thinking of home?” Rinzler stops at the top of the steps.

“Yea. Hey,” she runs up on her toes and passes him to stand in the airlock with Iris, “can I call you Rinz?”

“Oh,” an exclamation point lights up his visor. “Yea, that’s fine with me.”

“Cool.” She grins and bumps him with her shoulder while the ship repressurises. His visor glows again but she isn’t paying attention, instead beaming down at the spoils in her hands. The glowing turns a soft pink until the inner door opens and her helmet disengages.

Iris enters the kitchen first with the other two in tow, and heads straight for the refrigerator. Chico is where they left him: at the table watching more news. He perks up when he sees them, but Iris holding her spoils bag halfway into the open fridge causes him to jump up.

“Iris! What did we talk about?”

She grumbles and trudges to a drawer. “Meat mussst be ssssealed.” 

“That’s right!” He praises, nodding enthusiastically. Iris properly seals her findings while io and Rinzler drop their bags onto the table. “Did you get the chips?”

io rummages and brings out the blue bag: _Kevlar Crisps! The Bag is Bulletproof for Some Reason!_

“These?” She hands it to him and he squawks. 

“You guys really are the best!”

“Don’t start digging in just yet,” Rinzler reminds them, “We should take off now so we don’t lose too much time. Then you can eat your weird salty noodle soup.”

“Hell yea, salty noodle soup!” 

Chico and Iris strap themselves back in, but io takes the seat beside Rinzler’s this time. The ship rumbles and lifts. STARCO Fuel gets further and further away until it becomes a tiny orange dot again, sickly Jupiter twin doing the same. Once they break orbit artificial gravity kicks in, and Iris slithers out of her restraints to nab her food from the fridge. She disappears into her room without a word, but the lingering stench of her container says plenty - words that io wishes she didn’t have to smell.

“Well, wish me luck, Rinz. I’m gonna go have a normal conversation with Chico now.” She says, hands on her hips when she feels comfortable enough to get up. 

“Don’t overthink it, space cadet.”

“That’s all I know how to do.” She play-salutes and turns on a heel. Chico waves at her from the table when she returns to the kitchen, blissfully unaware of most things but especially her dastardly plans to befriend him. His feathers are dusted blue from chips. She grabs a packet of ramen to look busy _and_ finally feed herself.

“I noticed you got more stuff!” He chirps, “I’ve never been to a STARCO. I used to eat these on my home planet when my dad would bring them home from his missionary trips.”

_Aha! A conversational lead!_

“Your dad used to travel a lot, huh? What did he do for a living?” The stove shudders as io turns it on, a pot of water slowly heating up. She subconsciously takes a step away from it, to be safe.

“He was - or maybe is, I’m not sure - a high ranking religious...guy.” He turns the bag upside down to shake out the last remaining crisps, blue dust coating his beak. “I haven’t seen him for a while, y’know?”

“Ah, right. I can imagine it must’ve been pretty hard for you, huh? Out here in space with Iris. She mentioned the other day that she um... kidnapped you…”

“Oh! She told you that? I’m surprised! But honestly, between you and me…” He reaches for an energy bar and tears it open. “I think, in a weird way, she saved me.”

“She _what_ -” io nearly pops the bag of noodles in her grip. “Are we talking about the same Iris? The one that eats smelly meat and has definitely killed a few people-”

“More than a few!”

“And you’re trying to tell me she saved you? Saved you from what?”

Chico hesitates, holding the energy bar with both hands. It feels like the first time since they met that io senses genuine sadness from the bird, and it tugs her heartstrings a little harder than she expected it to. 

“Uh...we don’t have to talk about it! It’s really alright, I don’t want you to mess up your ramen!” _That’s_ the Chico she’s used to. “I know it’s been a while since you’ve had any real food, and I’d hate for you to not eat it now.”

“Chico, it’s instant ramen. No one in the history of the universe has messed up ramen.” She tears open the bag and dumps the crumbly remains into the boiling water, including the spice packet. _Shit._ “It’ll be a bit before the noodles are cooked. Maybe you could tell me what your home planet was like while I wait.”

“Really? You mean it…?” He still seems subdued as he pecks at the bar, talons anxiously scratching at the floor. “Well...it’s a long story, so strap in!”

io hops onto the counter and crosses her legs, offering the bird an encouraging nod.

“Gosh, I’m not even sure where to start. Uh...so everyone on my planet’s extremely religious. We have this ritual where we climb to the absolute highest point on the planet, and we’re supposed to trust in ‘the High Winds’ to help us glide back to town. It’s supposed to show that you’ve accepted the High Winds into your heart, and the current will guide you to your true path or whatever. Everyone has to do it, no exceptions.

My best friend Azul and I, we had our rituals on the same day! We practiced all the time, and even though I was kinda nervous Azul kept cheering me on. We thought we were ready but it was...scary when we got up there. The winds were stronger than we thought they’d be, but Azul was so sure we’d be okay. ‘The High Winds will carry us to safety’, he told me. ‘Just like we practiced! We’ll be okay’.”

Chico pauses, setting the half-pecked energy bar on the table as his stomach twists and churns. io feels a deep pit in her stomach, having an idea about where the story is going but too afraid to actually complete the thought. He takes a few deep, unsteady breaths.

“He went first, to show me that it’d be fine. I watched him struggle against the gusts, and in the end he couldn’t stabilize himself in time. I tried to go after him, but the elder overseeing the trial held me back. Said Azul needed to succeed on his own, and that he didn’t trust in the High Winds enough. I felt...powerless. Sick. Numb. I climbed down from the perch, and because I never completed my ‘trial’ I wasn’t allowed to hold a real job in town. The worst part was that no one seemed to care that he died. I tried asking around, but everyone was delighted that he went to join the Ethereal Aerie. No funeral, nothing. They were angrier that I skipped my jump than they were that he didn’t make it.”

The pot of ramen rattles violently as it starts boiling over. io is quick to snatch it and slide it to an unused burner, giving her a much-needed second to breathe. To hear that the people in charge couldn’t muster up enough empathy to even _bury_ the poor guy leaves her cheeks red and stinging. She struggles to find words that are either comforting or angry enough.

“Don’t worry, this is when things start getting better! Sort of!” Chico perks up with a sniffle, dabbing at the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. “I managed to get a job under the table gathering herbs for a little restaurant, and that was cool for a while. At least, until Iris showed up. I mean, not just Iris but like...her and an entire army. I ran back to the town while their ships landed to warn them, but no one wanted to listen to the heretic. Her people caught the whole town off guard. I snuck off into the forest to try and hide, and that’s when I found Iris! Or rather, Iris found me.

She held a claw to my neck and used me like a shield to make our soldiers hesitate, then stole this ship to get off-world! It was a little scary at first, what with her threatening to eat me and all that but...I realized that it was the change I needed. I couldn’t be there anymore, y’know? When you realize that the world you grew up in didn’t care about you at all, all you can really do is start over somewhere else. Plus, Iris and I have been getting along great!”

io sits across from him with a steaming bowl of ramen and raised brows. For all his enthusiasm and energy, she wouldn’t have predicted such a grizzly home life. 

“Chico I...had no idea.”

“Yeah, I try not to bring it up. I don’t wanna make anyone sad. Plus, it was a whole lifetime ago, y’know? This is a new me. And the new me,” Chico drops the last of the energy bar into his mouth, finally satisfied. “is always gonna be there for a friend, no matter what. That includes you! And Rinzler too!”

“ _Friend_.” She repeats, as if the word were covered in velvet and sparkles. “I have an idea, just give me a minute.” And she digs into her food like a cave person, pleasantly surprised by the quality of space noodles. She downs the leftover soup and throws her bowl into the sink before she gestures for him to follow.

“Come on, emergency ship meeting!”

He skitters after her with question marks above his head. Rinzler had been repairing yet another minor malfunction on the console when they came in. He entertains io by agreeing to call Iris in for their meeting, and as soon as she arrives io clasps her hands together.

“Thank you for joining me, crew!” She says with dramatic flair, her foot on one of the pilot chairs. “Look at all of us. We’ve come so far from a sad little crashed spaceship in the buttcrack of a smelly junk planet. Now we’re a sad little spaceship in space!” Her crowd looks tough, except for Chico who smiles at her with enough energy to cover for the other two. She points at Rinzler.

“ _Special_ thanks to the guy who we literally could not have done any of this without. And now that we’re all friends on a mission to stop some bad guys from destroying the universe or whatever, I think it’s time we chose a name for our crew.”

“Oh _boy_! A name! I love names!!” Chico cheers. Rinzler looks pensive and Iris hisses lowly.

“I don’t undersssstand why.”

“Because this is all we’ve got now.” io throws her hands out to them. “ _You’re_ all I’ve got now. Iris you may still want to eat me, and that’s fine. I’m willing to look past that. But from here on out I’ve got all of your backs, because you’re all my friends. So we need a name.”

“Poignant. You’re not bad at this speech stuff.” Rinzler says. Iris and Chico talk amongst themselves.

“Somebody I admire once told me that a great pilot cares about their crew, and I took notes.”

Rinzler crosses his arms over his chest and for the first time, she sees an emoticon type face light up on his visor, a smug smile. “We’re learning a lot from each other.”

io opens her mouth to respond and ask about the visor, when Chico caws.

“I’ve got it!” He claps. “The Nonthreatening Alliance of Space Adventurers!”

“Nonthre...NASA?” Rinzler muses.

“Yea! NASA!”

“It’s got a nice ring to it.”

“What?” io’s expression drops. “No, we can’t name it that.”

“I like it….it’sss disssarming. A dissstraction. They’ll never sssssee ussss coming.”

“Hold on everyone, wait, _any_ other name is fine, we just can’t use that. On Earth that was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” io explains in exasperation.

“Wassss.” She stares at Iris with disbelief.

“All for Nonthreatening Alliance of Space Adventurers.” Rinzler says, raising his hand in tandem with Chico and Iris.

“Yay! NASA!”

io falters, crossing her arms, “Nobody is going to take us seriously.”

Rinzler meanders closer and nudges her.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but speaking as somebody who’s seen your whole intro act…”

She shakes her head and lightly snorts. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Rinz.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Look out Isotech!” Chico beams as he leaps up onto the pilot’s seat, standing proudly above the crew. “Your planet destroying days are over - NASA’s hot on your trail!”

io sharply inhales to protest, but can’t bring herself to push against Chico’s endearing threats. It’s ridiculous, sure, but the cheeriness in the cockpit is the most ‘at home’ she’s felt in a while.

“Yeah…” She relents and offers him a smile, which he wholeheartedly accepts. “NASA’s on the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and welcome aboard!
> 
> Please keep arms, legs, tentacles and eye stalks inside the spaceship at all times. By finishing this chapter, you have relinquished all rights to sue in the case of modular displacement via black hole and/or other untested methods of space exploration.
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy your flight.
> 
> (Thank you to @ursus_canis on Twitter for beta reading and editing. Visit @syntheticcangel on Twitter for visual character shenanigans!)


End file.
